~ Let Me Tell You a Story

Red Shoes

“When you put on the red shoes,” they said. “You can never take them off.”
And you don’t. Not really. You sleep in red shoes you cannot see.
You put them on every morning, you take them off every night, but they never come off your feet. You sleep in the ghosts of the red shoes.

You never plan on wearing them. You never dreamed, as a child, of being the one who wears them. It might come to you in your prayers, when you are alone at night. The hint, the barest dream of them.

But you take that dream, and abort it in its infancy, and toss it out of your mind before it can mature into a grown and evil manifestation of pride. To want the shoes is to never be worthy of wearing them.

There are never two pairs of red shoes. You can’t wear them if someone else has a pair. They have to die, or leave. Usually they die. Red shoes are fatal in almost all cases.
You don’t refuse them, though, when they are offered. You have already been wearing red. But not the shoes. You don’t wear red with the shoes—too matchy. You wear white, so that the only red thing is the shoes.

Red was the color of shoes Nero wore. And Julius Ceasar. Red was the color of emperors and tyrants, the color worn by kings of men. Perhaps you shouldn’t be wearing red, you think. Bloody footprints have been left by men who wore red shoes.

But you can’t resist them.

Like the girl in Anderson’s story, who danced until she died, you can’t resist the power of the shoes. They will kill you, make you dance the endless dance, a dance both dangerous and beautiful.

You can’t help yourself when they are offered to you. Your hand reaches from them, even as your heart my back away a little, wondering “Why me?”
You never think you are strong enough to dance until you die. You couldn’t do it, without the help. The magic, the power of red shoes. The shoes give you strength, somehow. You do things you never thought were humanly possible.

You fear nothing in the shoes. Not death. Not danger. Not the hatred of millions, some who hate you just because you wear red shoes.
You go around the world, and touch people. You can go anywhere in red shoes. You talk to leaders of every country, you meet dictators and tyrants, you beg for mercy and you plead for forgiveness. You wear red shoes.

You are teased, sometimes, for what you wear. Too extravagant, too showy, your clothes, your red shoes. Santa Claus wears a suit of red velvet trimmed in white fur, you think. Dorothy in Wizard of Oz had red shoes too. You know what the red shoes really mean, and you smile to yourself when people talk about your style. Red is a color of sacrifice. But men don’t wear red shoes.

Only one man wears red shoes every day until he dies. And no matter how he clicks his heels, he can never go home again. You know this, the day you slip them on your feet.
You are the Rock upon which the Church resides. You have the shoes of the Fishermen, but Peter never wore red shoes. He wore brown sandals.

You are not Peter. You are just another Pope, another man in red shoes.
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